Metroid: Deception
by PurpleMontart
Summary: All is not as it seems in the galaxy. Bounty Hunter Samus Aran is just about to find this out.


~#Log 32-Zy Beta Quadrant~#

_All those lives, destroyed. Those families ripped apart by grief. All the destruction and death. And why? For a false government, false names, treaties, excises, and sanctions. They tricked me. And I won't stop until I redeem my name._

~#End Log~#

**Metroid: Deception**

Prologue

"Space Pirates recently attacked a freighter on the border of the QE 774 System and the GT 828 System three weeks back. As far as we can tell, the attack was fought off valiantly, but since then we haven't heard a word from the crew of _Argo_. She was carrying very precious cargo, and we can't afford to pull any troops away from the front of the battle. So, we're sending you, Samus. We want you to track down the vessel from it's last know co-ordinates, here," Samus' ears rang slightly as her Power Suit uploaded the _Argo_'s galactic co-ordinates. "And secure it. Wipe out any Space Pirate threats. We can't have any left alive. I can't stress to you how important this cargo is to the Galactic Federation, Samus, and we need all of it or none of it. This is priority Alpha." The transmission ended as soon as it had begun.

Sighing gently, Samus switched her gunship into manual, manoeuvred it around the massive bulk of the _G.F.S. Styx_, and entered the new co-ordinates. "Acknowledged. E.T.A. three hours fifty minutes precisely. This freighter really was off the beaten track. The QE 774 System? No one had been there since the frigate _Chelo_ had sighted several large Pirate command ships patrolling. And the GT 828 System has less life than the void of space.

Commander Dean could have been more specific. 'Precious cargo'? Samus doubted this. Any Galactic Federation Commander worth his salt would never send a _Tynerious_ class freighter like the _Argo_ to an area of deep space like the GT 828 System while it was carrying 'precious cargo'. But whatever. The Galactic Federation money more than paid for the very expensive suit and ship repairs. The occasionally dangerous mission, which by her standards would be very difficult to come across, might help her standing.

Slowly gliding her hand over the controls to her gunship, Samus switched it back to automatic, and lay back in her chair. Not a very long trip (her flight to the _G.F.S. Styx_ had taken a week), but it was still nearly four hours. A single thought flashed through her mind, and her Power Suit began to dematerialise, leaving her in her blue Zero Suit. She closed her eyes. The ship would wake her in time.

--------

Beep beep beep beep

Samus woke with a start. She'd fallen into a deeper sleep than she had planned. Disorientated, she retracted the blast shield covering the view screen and shouted out as bright sunlight burst through the glass at the front of the gunship. Blinking rapidly, her eyes adjusted slowly. Groping at the control panel, she pulled at a dial and the screen dimmed. Now able to see, Samus looked out at the scene laid out in front of her.

To her immediate left was the star GT 828, and the namesake of this system. Orbiting it was GT-1, sub-planet status, and GT-3, an Earth-sized rock with absolutely no breathable atmosphere. Evidence had shown that at some point in the system's history, there had been a third planet, GT-2, which had been habitable. GT-2, however, had been struck by a Leviathan. This destroyed both planet and, thankfully, Leviathan, but forced back the Galactic Federation border.

And there, directly in front of her, was the _Argo_. The biggest ship in its class, it had a cargo hold of over 500,000m3. Fitted with the latest in weapons technology, it could hold back an impressive Pirate fleet on it's own, until reinforcements arrived. It had even had it's own Aurora Unit, until, for reasons still unknown, the AU died. Since then, the massive freighter relied on an entirely normal crew, who did their job with skill, precision, and pride. The _Argo_ had survived more than even the largest of the Olympus-class battleships would undergo. And somewhere in there, was this 'precious cargo' the Federation wanted, no, needed so badly.

Moving in closer, Samus could see signs of a fight, in the form of blast marks littering the hull of the freighter. Apart from that, however, there where no indications that anything major had happened. No Space Pirate boarding vessels, the scanners on her gunship could find no sign of any Pirate ships within an astronomical unit. But…

Ah! There! The docking bay lights where on and flashing. But her scans revealed that there was no power. Samus sighed. Too many times she was pulled into situations like this. That being said, however, she had been trained to do exactly this by the Chozo. As her Power Suit reformed around her body, her hands tapped across the control panels in front of her, angling her ship in for approach. Her visor closed, and she readied herself for the worst.


End file.
